


At Sea

by Seefin



Series: Headway [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, HP: EWE, Multi, Weed, don't you worry this has a good ending, light hospitalisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-18 02:48:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14203407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seefin/pseuds/Seefin
Summary: Malfoy’s in Harry’s bed, and he tells him that he’s breaking off his engagement, and Harry starts to feel like he’s a character in a romance novel. Probably not the main one, because Malfoy seems more suited to that than anyone Harry’s ever met. He has the temperament for it; moody, and sort of vain, and really posh, and he looks a bit waifish as well to go on top of that, with his wispy blonde hair and his pale, thin limbs, like he spent too much time indoors growing up and now catches debilitating colds at the drop of a hat.Plus he’s started doing things like staring at Harry for long stretches of time as though he’s looking at the night sky, all wide-eyed and disbelieving and awe-struck, and then telling Harry he’s not getting married anymore.





	At Sea

1.

Malfoy’s in Harry’s bed, and he tells him that he’s breaking off his engagement, and Harry starts to feel like he’s a character in a romance novel. Probably not the main one, because Malfoy seems more suited to that than anyone Harry’s ever met. He has the temperament for it; moody, and sort of vain, and really posh, and he looks a bit waifish as well to go on top of that, with his wispy blonde hair and his pale, thin limbs, like he spent too much time indoors growing up and now catches debilitating colds at the drop of a hat.

Plus he’s started doing things like staring at Harry for long stretches of time as though he’s looking at the night sky, all wide-eyed and disbelieving and awe-struck, and then telling Harry he’s not getting married anymore.

Harry suspects that in the novel that is Draco Malfoy’s life, he’s the love interest, and doesn’t know what to do with that realisation. He kind of likes the idea of lying in bed for long stretches of time, being bought roses, being told that he’s the love of someone’s life, but he’s pretty certain that’s not how things are likely to play out with Malfoy, who, after something like seven months of dating, has only just this second decided to not be engaged to someone else.

Harry knew it was coming. He’s an Auror, which means he’s observant for a living, and also he’d have to be pretty stupid to not have caught onto the fact that Malfoy’s a little bit in love with him. Part-way in love with him. He’s been mooning around Harry’s apartment all the time and holding Harry’s hand a lot and making an effort with Harry’s friends. He’s not subtle at all, and actually Harry probably would have caught on about three to four months sooner if not for the fact that Malfoy had been going about the whole thing completely backwards.

Harry is willing to admit, to himself and to pretty much anyone who asks, that he is shit at dating and literally always has been. Everything about it makes him nervous and weird and sweaty. But he’s never seen someone approach it the way Malfoy does, as though Harry is a forest full of bear traps and hidden pits and people waiting to spring out at you from behind trees in order to have difficult conversations about your feelings. He sort of enjoys that about Malfoy though, that he’s twisty and difficult and probably won’t ever explicitly tell Harry that he likes him, and will instead speak in coded messages. Such as: _I was worried about you,_ said with his eyes closed _,_ or _be careful,_ accompanied by the firm touch of his hand on Harry’s shoulder _._ Harry listens out for every one of them, carefully, and stores every one of them away, because he thinks that kind of thing doesn’t come to Malfoy very easily.

This, Malfoy saying: _I’m not getting married to someone else,_ is quite possibly the most romantic thing that anyone has ever said in the history of the world, if Harry really thinks about it.

So Malfoy says that and Harry knows what it means and so he shuffles himself closer to Malfoy’s chest, which is bare and pale, and puts his arm around Malfoy’s waist. Harry can feel Malfoy’s ribcage pressed up against his inner elbow, and runs his hands up and down Malfoy’s side a few times, feels the bump of his ribs underneath his fingers. Malfoy feels fragile like this, thin skinned and naked, making soft noises like he’s falling asleep. They should talk more, they should always talk more about everything, but Harry lets Malfoy lie there quietly until he really is sleeping, his mouth open, breath warm and wet against Harry’s neck.

Harry dozes for a while, too hot under his thick duvet and yet unwilling to move, until his phone rings. It’s got light outside somehow, while he wasn’t paying attention. He turns himself over and rustles around on the bedside table until he feels his telephone, and then picks it up, saying hello in a hushed voice. Malfoy moves around against the mattress, grumbles.

“Hi,” Hermione says, her voice cool and brisk and weirdly businesslike for such an early hour. Harry swings his legs over the edge of the bed and puts them down on the wood floors. They’re freezing, and he lifts them up again.

“Hiya,” he replies, and then yawns loudly. That usually makes Hermione laugh, but she doesn’t this time. He looks out of the window. The sky is stormy sea blue, the houses across the street all dark with their lights off, the trees whipping about in the wind, wild and frantic. It’s probably about five in the morning, if he had to guess. Maybe a little closer to six.

“I don’t want to worry you,” she says, which obviously makes Harry start worrying. If there wasn’t anything to worry about, she wouldn’t be saying that, he thinks. “But someone came to the house, tried to get inside. He’s in custody now. We think it was that man who sent you that letter.”

“What?” Harry says, his voice weird where he hasn’t really had a chance to wake up properly yet. He can’t even-- he tries to think about someone hurting Ron and Hermione and his mind just slides right off it. “What? He’s in custody? Did he think I’d be there?”

Hermione makes one of those noises that could mean either yes or no or maybe, and then says, “we don’t know yet. It seems likely.”

“Are you okay?” Harry asks, running one hand through his hair. It’s something he should have asked first, as soon as he picked up the fucking phone. He can hear Malfoy waking up more behind him, the shift of the sheets as he stretches his arms over his head. Harry doesn’t even have to look to know he’s doing it, because Malfoy goes through this every time he wakes up, and usually Harry gets a face full of armpit out of the whole production.

“Yeah of course,” she says, sounding surprised. “We called for backup but I’d restrained him by the time they’d got here. He’s only just been taken in. Ron’s getting dressed now and we’re heading in.”

“You restrained him,” Harry repeats. He isn’t exactly surprised.

Malfoy makes a questioning noise, and Harry reaches his hand out blindly to hush him. It lands on a patch of Malfoy’s bare skin. Hip, possibly. “Are you coming?” Hermione asks.

“Yeah,” Harry says, “I was just about to say. Should I come to yours first?”

“Um,” Hermione says, and then there’s a muffled sound that Harry can’t parse. “Should he come here first?” she says. Harry doesn’t hear Ron reply, but he waits. “Ron’s ready,” Hermione says, “so we’ll see you there, alright?”

“Alright,” Harry says. “I need to get dressed but I’ll be right there.”

Hermione makes an affirmative sort of noise. “Love you,” she says, “see you soon.”

“Yeah,” Harry replies, and yawns again. “Love you too.”

Hermione hangs up, and Harry is left blinking with the phone in his hand. He puts it back in the cradle, tucking the cord back behind the table where it had stretched out a bit.

He stands up. “What’s going on?” Malfoy asks. He’s sprawled out across the bed, post-stretch, naked apart from the thin gold chain he always wears around his wrist. Harry looks down at him, and Malfoy goes all red under his gaze, but doesn’t move. He likes to be looked at.

“It was Hermione,” Harry tells him. His eye catches on a thick, ropy scar at the top of Draco’s thigh, the one that looks the most painful, like it took the longest time to heal. Like maybe you could see bone through it or something. It’s right beside Malfoy’s dick, which means that Harry has spent a lot of time with his face in pretty close range. He still hasn’t got any more used to seeing it.

“What did she want?” Malfoy says. “Are you still going to make me banana pancakes?” He looks out of the window, beyond Harry’s shoulder, and makes a face. “Fuck it’s early.”

Harry doesn’t really have time for this. But he’d like to come back home to Malfoy sleeping, and make him banana pancakes like he promised last night. “I have to go meet her and Ron about something,” Harry says. “It’s a work thing.” He’s not actually sure if that’s true or not. He supposes if this person’s been arrested by the Aurors, and Harry’s an Auror, that makes it a work thing by default.

“About what?” Malfoy asks, sitting up all suspicious looking and frowny.

“Will you do something for me,” Harry says. “Will you go back to sleep and let me come home and wake you up.”

Malfoy goes even more red at that, at the thought of it. “Well,” he says throatily, “I suppose I wouldn’t mind, no.”

“And I’ll make you pancakes,” Harry tells him. “But I’ve got to go in like three minutes.”

“Yes yes,” Malfoy says, waving his hand elaborately. He pulls the duvet back over himself, right up to his chin, and lies back down against the pillows. “You’re terribly important.”

Harry grins, and then gets dressed, throwing his robes on over the first things he finds in his wardrobe, which happen to be a silk shirt a few sizes too big, and a pair of Ron’s trousers. They’re much too long for him, and he wastes a few minutes rolling them up at the cuffs.

He laces his boots, and thinks about what Ron and Hermione will say when he tells them about Malfoy. Harry wonders if Malfoy will have to publish a retraction in the paper about his engagement. Ron will probably be pleased when he finds out, because all Ron really wants is for Harry to be loved deeply by as many people as humanly possible. It’s partly what made him hate Malfoy so much in school, apart from all the names and the bullying and the pureblood shit. He couldn’t really fathom why someone would hate Harry the way Malfoy hated Harry.

Harry will tell Hermione and she’ll probably sniff, which will be weird because it’ll remind him of Malfoy, and beyond that he doesn’t really know what her reaction will be. She always seems baffled that Malfoy even likes him, which verges on insulting at times, and now she just exists in a state of deep and unrelenting confusion about the whole thing. And Harry knows Hermione doesn’t do well with confusion.

//

He leaves Malfoy sleeping and apparates over to the Auror offices. They’re open, sort of, with only the barest boned staff, all looking sleeping and vaguely irritable as their shifts come to an end. Harry’s never met the early morning receptionists, but he goes up to the desk and smiles at them hopefully.

“Can I help you?” one of them says, while the two others look down in relief at their portable game of cluedo. He thinks Ginny and Luna have the same one in their house somewhere.

“Yeah,” he replies. “I’m looking for someone that’s just been brought in. Breaking and entering, I think.”

The woman nods tiredly. It must have been a slow night if she knows what he’s talking about just like that. “Auror Granger’s house, I heard,” she says.

“And Auror Weasley’s,” Harry says evenly. “Is he being questioned yet?”

She looks down at her desk and shuffles through some papers, eventually coming across a big spreadsheet. Words keep rearranging themselves on the page, faster than Harry can keep track of. She nods, but then says, “They’re still booking him. Taking him to interrogation room seven though, after. Shouldn’t be too long.”

“Great,” Harry says, looking at her name badge. A little sticker of a dog is obscuring half of her name, for some reason. “Great,” he says again, “thanks, I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, and turns back to her colleagues and the cluedo game.

It’s nice working here. People recognise him, they know who he is, but nobody’s ever said anything about it. It’s good to be in a place where everyone’s got their own stuff going on all the time, even if that stuff is an early morning board game before you get to go home for the day. Everyone’s always far too busy to ask him for his autograph.

Harry makes his way over to the interrogation rooms, which are in the basement, kept deliberately dark and a bit damp. Makes people want to get out of there faster. He takes the lift down and comes out at another desk, beside a set of thick doors. The lad at the table, half asleep, asks to see his badge, and then buzzes Harry through after a few long seconds of inspection. Ron’s waiting down the corridor, beside another set of doors, these ones with glass windows in them so that you can see all the way down to the stairwell at the other end of the building.

He’s leaning against the white wall with his arms crossed, but stands up straighter when he spots Harry walking towards him. “Hi,” he says. “He’s not here yet, they’re booking him.”

Harry nods, stares at him. “Yeah the receptionist told me,” he says. “Listen are you all right? What happened?”

Sometimes Ron comes back from missions with a few more bruises than he should have, or another hastily-healed scar, white and fresh, and Harry will be forced to think about Ron being in danger and also Ron potentially dying. Harry had a whole big thing with his own mortality years ago, doesn’t dwell on it much anymore, but he does everything possible to avoid being confronted by the fact that Ron or Hermione could die at literally any second. At least when they’re on missions it’s finite, they’re in danger but then it ends and they’re home and they’re safe. But now they’re not, apparently, as safe as he’d thought they were. Maybe he should move back into Grimmauld Place.

Ron is saying something, and Harry takes a few moments to focus on his words. He looks at Ron’s mouth, which is moving silently, and then Ron is touching his shoulder and he hears him again. “--on the doorstep,” Ron says. “Loudly, too. Wasn’t being subtle about it at all. We woke up and thought it was an animal or something, because of the _fidelius._ ”

He looks at Harry for a reaction, so Harry nods, and then he keeps talking. “I called for backup,” he says. “But Hermione went back upstairs and got her wand, and then just went right outside.” Ron looks uncomfortable. “I wanted her to wait,” he says. “But you should have seen it. The guy went for her as soon as she opened the door. Cruciatus.”

Harry winces. “Did it hit her?” Hermione had sounded fine when they’d spoken. Had said she was fine. But that doesn’t mean she is.

Ron shakes his head, and Harry lets out an entire lungful of air. “She got him down right away,” he says. “You know what she’s like. Faster than anything.”

Harry nods. “Where were you?” he asks.

Ron looks at him, rolls his eyes. “Behind her, obviously. I wasn’t just going to hang out inside the house was I.”

“Well I dunno,” Harry says defensively. “That’s how you made it sound.”

“Don’t have much faith in me, do you,” Ron says. Harry can’t tell whether or not he’s joking, which is unusual.

“That,” Harry says, “is patently untrue, Ron.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ron says. He nudges his shoulder against Harry’s, once, and then does it again but leaves himself there, so they’re pressed against each other.

“No,” Harry insists. “I’m serious. I have--”

A grey door opens opposite them and Hermione pokes her head out. “There you are,” she says. Her hair’s down, a big spray of curls around her face, and she’s looking at him impatiently. He grins at her.

“Hey,” he says. “I was looking for you.”

“Well congratulations,” she replies, stifling a smile, “you’ve found me. Now can you come in here and actually help out with this, please.”

Harry pushes off from the wall, but stops her before he goes inside. “You alright?” he asks. “Why’d you two take him on by yourselves?”

“He was trying to get into our house,” Ron says, and Hermione looks up at him. She nods.

It occurs to Harry, right at that second, that maybe they didn’t want him to get away because of the letter he’d sent to Harry’s office. He wanted to rip Harry apart at the limbs, apparently. Wanted his blood, his head. Harry had given the letter to Hermione, showed a photocopy to Malfoy, and then shredded the photocopy so he couldn’t look at it anymore, sick to his stomach of it.

“Why do you reckon that was?” he says, instead of maybe shouting at them a little. He might later when they’re home. He hasn’t quite decided yet.

“If you’d come inside this fucking room,” Hermione says gently, intently, “then we might be able to find out.”

Harry goes inside the room.

Interrogation room number seven is exactly the same as all the other interrogation rooms, apart from number thirteen which is on the corner of the building and therefore considerably larger than all the others. The special-occasion interrogation room. They all have the same decor though; plain grey floors in a plasticky material that sticks to the soles of your shoes, and a sturdy wooden table in the middle of the room, a couple of chairs circled around it. The walls are grey too, watermarks on the ceiling, flickering fluorescent lights overhead. No windows, obviously, but behind one of the walls is another, smaller room, where Ron and Hermione and Harry are currently standing, along with two other Aurors. The wall is transparent from this side, so they can see the table and the chairs and the stained ceilings. Harry felt so vulnerable the first time he came in one of these. Like there was nothing between him and the people being questioned except the thick, oily shimmer of a transparency charm.

Auror Peterson nods at Harry. “Auror Potter,” she says, and Harry nods back. He doesn’t know why everyone here is so obsessed with calling each other by their last names. He hates it. He doesn’t think that happens at any other job. Ginny doesn’t go around calling everyone on her team _Chaser Jones_ or whatever.

“Auror Khoury’s going to question him,” Hermione says, but Harry is looking at the table and the chairs, the person sitting there. He’s tall. Taller he looked in that CCTV photo. Deathly pale. Harry looks away, Auror Khoury’s smiling at him in encouraging sort of manner. Harry smiles back, or like, tries to.

“Does he have a lawyer?” Ron asks. Peterson shakes her head.

“Didn’t want one,” she says. “This is only initial questioning, anyway. You have to decide if you want to press charges.”

Ron mutters something that Harry doesn’t catch, and Harry is turning to him when Khoury rustles a few papers about and says, “best get to it then.” He leaves by the door they came in from, and emerges in the room a few seconds later in the apparition space. Peterson follows behind him a moment afterwards.

Harry reaches down and touches Ron’s wrist. Ron flinches away at first, but it must have been out of surprise because he brings his hand right back a second later, touches Harry’s fingers with his own. Harry’s stomach jolts. Even now, even like this, even after years and years. The thought that Ron might have been hurt is unbearable. The thought that Ron will ever be anything apart from alive and laughing and whole, or alive and grumpy and irritated with Harry is-- it’s unbearable.

Hermione is close enough to touch, so he takes a hold of her wrist. She doesn’t flinch like Ron did, and she doesn’t look at him either, focused entirely on the room in front of them, but she lets him.

At the table, the man glances up at Khoury, studies him for a moment disinterestedly, and then looks back down at the floor. He doesn’t look at Peterson, who is standing close to the back wall, observing. Harry’s never seen him before in his life. He wants to have seen him before, he wants there to be some sort of recognition. Harry is so sick, so tired, of people who’ve never even met him trying to kill him.

Khoury sits down, and spreads out his papers on the table. Harry doesn’t know what any of them could even fucking say, being as they don’t even know this guy’s name, but Khoury seems like he knows what he’s doing. He’s older, been around for a long time.

“You’ve been made aware of your rights, and you’ve declined to have a solicitor present. Is that correct?” Khoury says, and the man’s eyes flicker upwards, then downwards again. He twists his fingers in his lap, doesn’t respond.

“Veritaserum,” Harry blurts out. “Can’t we--”

“Not until he’s been charged,” Hermione says, already shaking her head. “We don’t have a warrant for any magical questioning techniques yet.”

She doesn’t say that maybe Harry should already know that, which he should. He’s an Auror but right now he doesn’t feel like one. He feels lost, he feels like a child.

“Can you tell me your name and current address, please,” Khoury says. He’s looking down at his note paper, writing something absently.

“Clarence,” the guy says, and Ron flinches again. His voice is low, scratchy. Harry takes a deep breath.

“Second name?” Khoury asks, looking up at him, properly now.

Clarence shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk to you,” he says.

“Who do you want to talk to?” Peterson asks.

He stares at her. “Who do you think,” he says slowly, like he’s mouthing it to her through a thick pane of glass. Hermione twists her arm out of Harry’s grip, and puts her hand on his shoulder, steady, warm even through his robes.

“What were you doing at 12 Grimmauld Place this morning?” Khaury asks. “Let’s start with that.”

“No comment,” Clarence says. Peterson frowns down at him, doesn’t say anything.

“Do you deny that you were at 12 Grimmauld Place this morning?” Khaury asks.

Clarence doesn’t reply for a long while, and when he does he says: “I want to see Harry Potter.”

Hermione’s grip tightens on his shoulder, Ron’s fingertips brush more firmly against Harry’s, and Peterson’s eyes move, reflexively, to glance at the exact spot Harry is standing in.

Clarence’s eyes follow hers, until he’s looking at the wall as if he can see beyond it, and Harry wants so badly to take a step back, to leave the room, the building. He doesn’t though, he waits, which turns out to be a mistake. Harry’s looking right at Clarence when the shimmer of the transparency charm melts away, receding at the edges, when Khaury realises what’s happening and tries to grab for him. And then Harry just-- hurts, and he can’t hear anything and he hurts. And there’s already blood on the floor when he collapses.

 

2.

Harry wakes up in starts, opening his eyes for a moment while it’s light outside, closing them again, opening them to darkness. They stay open after a while, for long enough for him to register that he doesn’t seem to be in his own bed or Ron and Hermione’s bed or even one of Malfoy’s several, over-the-top four-posters. He actually seems to be in hospital, judging by the heart monitor beeping away steadily beside his head, and the way everything smells dull and antiseptic, like wound cleaner and bandages. From his bed he can see Ron, awake in a chair and looking at him, a sofa, on which Malfoy and Hermione are curled up asleep at opposite ends, and a big window. The shirt he’d put on earlier is hanging up in the window on a wire hanger, fluttering in a slight breeze. It’s ripped almost completely to shreds.

“Hey,” Ron says softly. “Harry, hi.”

Harry looks at him. “Hi,” he says. “Why do you sound like that?”

Ron lets out a very small, very sad huff of laughter. “Like what?” he says. “Quiet? It’s midnight, I dunno if you noticed. Those two are asleep.”

He nods his head towards the sofa. Malfoy’s arm is hanging off the side, his knuckles brushing the floor. It looks as though they started the evening as far away from each other as possible, but have migrated in the night. Their feet are overlapping. Hermione’s black brogues, Malfoy’s odd socks. Harry looks at them and looks at them .

“What happened?” he asks eventually. Ron shunts his chair closer, until it’s right against the side of Harry’s bed. Harry doesn’t know that he has to ask, really, because he remembers pretty much everything until he was hit with a fucking curse. He supposes he doesn’t know which curse.

Ron’s jaw clenches, and he swallows a few times. Harry reaches out weakly to pat his cheek, and Ron smiles clumsily. He was scared, Harry thinks. Harry didn’t mean to scare him.

“You’ve been in hospital for about thirty hours,” Ron says. “Do you remember going to the interrogation room?” Harry nods. His neck hurts, but he’s pretty much numb from his shoulders down.

“He didn’t escape, did he?” Harry asks. He doesn’t have very much energy. He feels like he usually has way more energy than this, and doesn’t know where it’s gone. By all accounts he’s been lying down for thirty hours, which is more sleep than he’s had in the last few weeks combined, probably.

“No,” Ron says uncertainly. “No he didn’t escape. I don’t think he wanted to. He just sat there after he hit you.”

“Hit me,” Harry says. His eyes go heavy again, sleepy and aching, and he closes them briefly. Ron touches the back of his wrist, and Harry looks across at him.

“Yeah,” Ron says. “Everything’s alright. You’re going to be fine, though.”

“Did he hurt you?” Harry asks. “Hermione?” He could kick himself. He doesn’t know why asking after them somehow always seems to be about the third thing that occurs to him, when it should be the first.

“He wasn’t going for us,” Ron says, still sounding all sad, and Harry tilts his head to the side.

Right then is when Malfoy wakes up, bolting upright silently, his hair falling wildly about his face. “You’re awake,” he says, somehow managing to make it sound accusatory. Harry smiles over at him fondly. He thinks he’s been given painkillers. Maybe a lot of them.

“Weasley said he’d wake me up when you woke up,” Malfoy continues, accompanied by a savage glare in Ron’s general direction. He stands up, stalks over like he’s forgotten he’s wearing jeans and one of Harry’s old t-shirts and no shoes. He pushes his hair back away from his face.

“It happened like three minutes ago,” Ron says, leaning back in his chair. “Calm yourself mate.”

Malfoy makes an angry, incoherent noise, and goes to Harry’s bedside. He sits down, although he’s careful not to jostle the mattress or anything. Ron watches him closely. “How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Kind of numb,” Harry says. “Is that supposed to be happening?”

“Yes,” Malfoy says, at the same time as Ron says, “I think so, yeah.”

“The doctor said it would last for about four more hours,” Malfoy says, shooting Ron a swift, dark look. “I don’t think she expected you to wake up while it was still happening.”

“I don’t think I’m awake,” Harry says. He shuts his eyes. It’s nice and dark behind his eyelids, and Malfoy is an oddly comforting weight at his side.

“Are you alright, Potter,” Malfoy says. “Because I thought you were dying when Weasley came to get me, you know. All hysterical and covered in blood.”

Harry thinks he manages to smile. “Can we let him go back to sleep,” Ron says calmly.

“I’m fine,” Harry says. He lifts his hand about an inch off the bed, and then slumps it back down. Someone pats his shoulder.

“Weasley saw me in the nude,” Malfoy says, “I thought you might like to know. He came to yours to look for me and I was still asleep.”

“Haha,” Harry says. He wishes he’d been there.

“Well,” Malfoy says reluctantly. “We’d better let you sleep, I suppose.”

“Hey,” Harry says. He forgets for a minute what he’d been about to ask, and then abruptly remembers again. “What curse was it? The one-- hit with. He hit me with.”

There’s a bleak moment of silence, and another pat to his shoulder. This time the person leaves their hand there. Hermione likes Harry’s shoulders, that’s usually the part of him she likes to touch the most. She says they’re nice and broad. “Oh,” Malfoy says, and doesn’t continue talking.

“Sectumsempra,” Ron tells him. “Pretty badly mate.”

Harry tries to muster up some emotions about that, and finds himself currently too tired to. He suspects he’ll have plenty in the morning, though.

“Oh,” he echoes. He falls asleep to the sound of Malfoy and Ron murmuring away to each other beside him, their voices lovely and quiet and low.

//

He wakes up again and they're all crowded around the bed, looking for all the world like they’re waiting for him to die or something. Apart from Malfoy, who is picking thin slices of cucumber out of a sandwich, and depositing them into a plastic container that’s lying on top of Harry’s bed sheets.

Hermione stares at him. “And anyway,” she’s saying. “I don’t know how you’re eating right now.”

Malfoy doesn’t look up at her, just flicks another bit of cucumber out of his fingers like he finds it very distasteful. They’ve been up for a while, Harry thinks, long enough to have had a conversation while he was unconscious. The thought worries him.

“You can’t seriously be making me feel guilty for being hungry,” Malfoy points out. He opens the sandwich up, looks inside, and seems to be satisfied with the contents. He takes a huge bite out of it, and then notices that Harry has opened his eyes. “Morning,” he says, mouth full.

“I’m just saying this isn’t a joke,” Hermione tells him, and then turns to Harry as though she hasn’t just started a fucking argument. Harry braces himself.

“ _What,_ ” Malfoy says. “I’m eating a sandwich and suddenly that means I’m not taking Potter’s near-death experience seriously? Fuck off, actually Granger.”

“Oi,” Ron says, frowning. “She has a point, _actually Malfoy_. When you come out with shit like that.”

Malfoy makes an awful face at him, raises his middle finger, and then just continues eating his sandwich. Harry blinks. They must have-- something must have happened last night for Malfoy to just back down like that. He’s chewing his sandwich viciously, like he’d rather be scratching Ron’s eyes out, and he’s frowning. But still. It’s something.

“Sorry Harry,” Hermione says, smiling at him. He rolls his eyes at her, and she rolls them back, her smile going wider. She always does this kind of thing. Starting shit and then pretending she definitely didn’t. She’s not as nice as people think, but she’s always nice to him.

“It’s alright,” he assures her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Already did,” Malfoy mutters, through a mouthful of wet, chewed-up sandwich. Everyone ignores him.

Harry doesn’t feel as numb as he did last night, although the traces of it are still there. His stomach’s starting to hurt a little, like later it’s going to bloom into a deep, sharp pain, but it’s not quite there yet. He moves to sit up, hesitantly, thinking someone might burst in and tell him to keep lying down on pain of death. Nobody does, though, and Ron even reaches over to help him. He’s not much use, his hands just fluttering all over the place like he doesn’t know where’s okay to touch. Harry bats him gently away.

“Do you want me to tell you what the doctor’s said?” Hermione asks. Her eyes are all puffy and Harry wants to reach up and soothe them. He thinks about running his thumb underneath her eye, dark circle disappearing in his wake.

“Okay,” he says, then shakes his head. “I’d rather hear about what happened before, actually.”

“We don’t-- we don’t really know,” Hermione says ruefully. “He had a dampening charm on. Wasn’t supposed to be able to do any magic at all. Also we confiscated his wand when he came in. We’re not allowed to do tests or anything, obviously, but I think he’s probably just immensely powerful.”

“How were you able to catch him then, at the house,” Harry says. It comes out a bit wrong. He didn’t mean it like Hermione and Ron aren’t powerful or competent or anything, because they are.

Hermione doesn’t seem to pay it any mind. She shakes her head. “I think maybe he wanted to be caught. To get to you.”

Harry nods. He hadn’t had that exact same thought, but it’s not really a surprise to hear it, either. “We should have been more careful,” Ron says blankly.

“I don’t know what you think you could have done,” Malfoy says. He’s finished his sandwich now, and has placed his hands neatly in his lap.

“There’s not much point worrying about it now,” Hermione says, sounding suspiciously like she might be agreeing with Malfoy. Ron gets an expression on his face as though he wants to argue, but doesn’t say anything.

Harry swallows. The pain has got a bit worse now, the sort of feeling he gets in his stomach when he’s desperately hungry on a training mission and hasn’t eaten in about thirteen hours. He moves his hand under the covers so that it’s resting on his belly, over a tightly wrapped set of bandages. They’re burning hot to the touch.

“It’s already healed,” Hermione says, leaning in towards him. The chair creaks underneath her. She rests her forehead against his thigh for one, brief moment, and then sits up straight again. Malfoy is watching her, eyes sparkling, alert. “You’re going to be fine.”

“It was Sectumsempra,” Harry says. He doesn’t look at Malfoy, and he doesn’t think Malfoy is looking at him, either. He wants to lift up his bandages, see what’s underneath.

Ron nods. “Where did he hit me?” Harry asks.

“Your stomach mostly,” Ron replies, shuddering a little. “It looked-- it looked really bad, but apparently it looked worse than it actually was. That’s what the doctor said.”

Malfoy stands up, the legs of his chair making an awful racket against the floor. “The doctor said she’d be here by now,” he says weakly, most of the colour drained from his already pale face. “Should I-- I think I might go and find her.”

He doesn’t wait for anyone to answer before he’s darted out of the door, letting it swing closed slowly behind him. Hermione watches it. “He’s an odd one,” she says, a little furrow appearing in between her brows

“Sectumsempra,” Ron reminds her, says all meaningfully, and her face falls.

“Oh fuck,” she says. “I forgot. I completely-- Harry I’m so sorry.”

“What are you sorry for,” he says. He’s running his hand over the bandages, under the loose, thin robe they’ve got him outfitted in. There are thick squares of gauze on his chest, a couple on his side, over his ribcage. He can’t actually feel one of his nipples, and someone, for some fucking reason, has shaved his chest hair away. His skin feels tight, his chest hot and angry and awful. He hasn’t felt like this in such a long time. He closes his eyes.

“Would someone mind getting me some water,” he says evenly. He wonders if he’s going to get more scars out of this. He’s so sick of the three of them being bruised and beaten and ripped apart and mended badly. He’s sick of their bones aching when it rains, their rough patches, their old wounds. Harry wants to take a bath in dittany, for all the fucking good it would do.

“Yeah, one sec,” Ron says, standing up. A moment later and a tap is running, and then a plastic cup is being pressed into his hand. The water’s lukewarm, but he drinks it anyway. Some of it drips down his chin.

“So,” Hermione says. “You’ve got some time off work, obviously.”

Harry opens his eyes to look at her. She looks weird and guilty and it’s making him even more depressed. “I’m not going on my mission,” he says.

She shakes her head. “No. And I don’t know if it’s being put on hold or if they’re sending someone else, but you’re not going next week, no.”

“They can’t send someone else,” Harry tells her, frowning. “We’ve been prepping for weeks.”

“Yeah,” Ron agrees. “We know. They’re having a meeting about it I think. Whether it has to go ahead or if it can wait for you to recover.”

“Recover?” Harry says. “For how long? I thought you said I was like-- healed. Completely.”

“You are,” Hermione says. “No, you are. As in, the wounds are closed and you’re not going to split them open or die or anything. But it was a lot of stress on your body, you need to-- lie down for a bit, I think. I don’t know. The doctor said she was going to talk to you about this.”

“You can’t go back into work right away after an incident like this anyway,” Ron says. “Hermione and I have been given leave as well. Khaury and Peterson too.”

“They’re alright?” Harry asks. He feels a little overwhelmed. He’d like to speak to his doctor, he thinks. He could use some professional reassurance. Hermione is a little too highly strung to be properly good at it.

“Yeah,” Ron says. “They’re fine. Shaken,” he laughs a little, tightly, “but fine.”

The door into the hallway opens and Malfoy emerges through it, his face flushed and the roots of his hair dark with water. A woman in a white coat is following him, he holds the door for her, and Harry smiles.

//

They go back to Harry’s apartment after he’s been discharged, with a written list of instructions on the activities he should and should not be partaking in. He’s supposed to be gentle with himself, it all boils down to. Harry isn’t quite convinced he’s going to be capable of that, but he’s willing to try.

They sit down at the kitchen table, all a little shocked and a lot tired. Malfoy’s here too, apparating over while Ron and Hermione accompanied Harry on the underground. He’s not allowed to apparate or use the floo or fly on a broom, which leaves him with only the options TFL have chosen to provide. He gets sick on buses, so, it’s the tube.

“Maybe we should go somewhere,” Ron suggests. They’re all watching Malfoy make an omelette at the stove. He’d not offered or asked, just started cooking. Chopping vegetables and grating cheese and just generally making a mess that Harry knows is going to be a complete pig to clean up later. It smells nice, though, and he thinks he probably is hungry underneath the layer of general stomach pain.

“Where?” Harry asks, watching Malfoy stalk about the kitchen, looking pointy and angry and like he’s being forced to be here. His feet are bare. He’s listening to them talk.

“Maybe Shell Cottage?” Hermione says. She is determinedly not looking at Malfoy, just taking little tentative sips out of the cup of tea he made for her earlier, begrudgingly and with a great deal of sighing.

Ron shakes his head. “Fleur and Bill are there,” he says. “Don’t really want to hang out with a newborn baby while we’re trying to make Harry relax.”

Harry thinks about it. He’d like to go to the countryside, he thinks. The days are getting hotter and longer and he hasn’t left London in the longest time. “We could rent somewhere?” he says. “Or go camping, maybe.”

“You can’t go camping with fresh wounds,” Malfoy snaps, from over beside the fridge. He gets out a carton of milk, sniffs it, and slams the door closed.

“Well, yeah,” Ron says. “We could rent somewhere, that would be alright.”

“I don’t have fresh wounds,” Harry says. “My wounds are closed.” He’s already given it up as a lost cause, though.

Everyone’s silent for a moment, and then Malfoy says, “Well, what about the Manor? My mother’s there but-- it’s plenty big enough.”

Hermione laughs mirthlessly. “No,” she says. “I don’t fucking think so.”

Malfoy’s cheeks go a deep, vivid red. “Right, yes. No, yes,” he says. “Of course. Wiltshire isn’t even that nice this time of year, honestly.”

“What about Wales?” Harry asks. “We could stay with Luna and Ginny?”

“This omelette is ready,” Malfoy says. He cuts it up into four pieces, puts it onto plates with some bread, and brings them all over to the table one by one. He places the first one down in front of Hermione, who stares at it for a moment before picking up her knife and fork with a sort of baffled, half-angry look on her face. Harry would give anything to know what she’s thinking.

Malfoy sits down at the table with them, next to Harry and across from Ron, and pokes at his side salad for a bit, his mouth all pursed and unsure. Harry looks around at all of them, eating tentatively and not talking to each other and sitting about ten metres apart from one another, and feels satisfied deep in his bones. He likes having them all here, all here in one place, where he can keep an eye on them.

Malfoy trails after Harry when he goes into the living room to find the phone so that he can ring Gin in Wales. Ron’s washing up dishes in the kitchen, whistling a little bit, absentmindedly, a song Harry doesn’t recognise.

“Granger keeps looking at me weird,” he says, as Harry’s sitting on the sofa and painstaking dialling the number. To ring Wales you have to put a weird code in front of all the numbers and he always messes it up. Malfoy sits down too, on the coffee table, and crosses his legs. Harry is too tired to tell him to just sit in a fucking chair like a normal person. “Like she doesn’t know why I’m here.”

The phone starts dialling, and Harry looks at him. Malfoy’s picked up one of Harry’s cork coaster and is picking little bits out of them. He starts a small pile beside the potted plant.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Harry says, watches as Malfoy licks his lips, frowns slightly. Harry wonders for a moment whether or not he’s spoken to Astoria. If he called her while Harry was passed out in hospital, told her the engagement was off.

“Well,” Malfoy says, his voice deliberate. “I don’t know where else I’d be.”

Harry stares at him until Luna picks up, on the seventh ring. “Hello?” she says. She sounds out of breath.

“Hi,” Harry says. “It’s me.”

“Harry!” she says, “Ron called us. Are you okay? Are you out of the hospital?”

“I’m calling you from home,” he says. “And yeah, everything’s okay. They discharged me about an hour ago.”

“Do you want to speak to Gin?” she asks. “We were just packing.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “Yeah, and you, I guess.”

Malfoy sits there quietly while Harry explains to them what happened, and asks them if their house is free this weekend. “Yeah,” Ginny says, surprised. “Actually. I’ve got like three away games in a row. We’re gone for a week.”

“Are you well enough to travel?” Luna asks, her voice coming faintly down the line.

“I think so,” Harry says. “I just have to rest, really. And Ron and Hermione are off too so I don’t think we want to hang around in London.”

“Will you look after Berry?” Ginny asks. “We were going to put her into kennels but if you’re coming to the house then we don’t have to.”

“Yeah of course,” Harry tells them. Malfoy’s staring at him. It’s really unsettling, so Harry makes a face at him. Malfoy doesn’t even crack a smile.

“Would I be- would I be welcome too?” Malfoy asks, once Harry’s said goodbye a hundred times and eventually hung up. “I know I haven’t got the time off work or anything, but I’ve got a lot of holiday days saved up.”

“You want to?” Harry asks.

“What kind of question is that,” Malfoy scoffs. He keeps picking things up and putting them down, nervously, in completely the wrong place. A book on famous Quidditch players that Nev got Harry for his last birthday, a lightly-used crystal ashtray from Grimmauld Place, a half-full cup of cold coffee.

“Obviously you can,” Harry says. “Have you ever been to Wales?”

“No,” Malfoy replies coolly. “Anyway I thought maybe you would want to check with Granger and Weasley first.”

“Ron came to get you the other day,” Harry says. “And like, they’re not in charge of who comes on holiday or not.”

Malfoy sighs. “I’ve found myself wanting to not upset them,” he says, and leans back on the coffee table, propping himself up with his hands. He’s probably leaving grease stains everywhere, and Harry sort of wants to tell him off for it. Instead, he kicks his foot against Malfoy’s shin, and Malfoy kicks him back.

“Well, that’s really nice,” Harry says. “Anyway you have to get on with each other now that I’m basically bedridden. You have to unite with each other and nurse me back to health.”

Malfoy gives him a particularly sharp kick, and Harry laughs. It makes his stomach curl in on itself. “You don’t need any fucking nursing,” Malfoy says.

That might not actually be true, but Harry is generous and doesn’t point it out. The doctor said he was going to have to take his own bandages off and that they might stick to him because of all the dried blood they’d not cleaned off yet. Harry feels-- he feels prepared to deal with that, probably, it sounds pretty simple. But you never know. He might have to make Malfoy tend to him in a hot bathtub, and bring him cold, lavender-scented flannels to cool his forehead.

Harry grins a bit at the thought, and Malfoy narrows his eyes suspiciously. “What are you thinking about?” he asks.

“You nursing me back to health,” Harry says, laughing. “You’d be so useless at it.”

Malfoy doesn’t laugh. “You’re going to be fine, though,” he says insistently. “I can’t-- I mean I know I’d be useless at it, unless for some reason your treatment requires daily omelettes, which I can’t imagine it does. But-- you’re going to be fine, Potter.”

“I know,” Harry says gently. God, Harry is so not the person here in need of a soothing lavender flannel. “I know, Malfoy.”

 

3.

Ginny and Luna have a house right on the edge of Newborough Forest, a few minutes walk away from a wide swathe of pale beach, with tall sand dunes and a lovely old lighthouse that looks out to sea. Harry’s been there a few times to stay, but somehow never with Ron and Hermione, and definitely never with Malfoy. Ginny’s stadium is nearby in Holyhead, and he’s watched her before in Quidditch games there, standing with his hands in his pockets underneath hard, freezing rain.

The drive up from London takes about eight uncomfortable hours, because obviously Harry can’t apparate. He feels a bit guilty making everyone else sit in a car with him for a whole day, but not guilty enough to want to do it by himself. Hermione drives for the first stretch, out of London and up the crammed motorway, getting more and more lax with her indicator until Malfoy gets fed up and takes over at the next service station.

Harry gets to sit in the front seat because he’s injured, and nobody has a go at him for hogging it like they might do normally, which is quite nice. Malfoy is a meticulous driver, and he takes them as far as the Welsh border, where he stops and refuses to drive in a different country. Ron laughs for an extended period of time, bent over at the side of the road at the expression on Malfoy’s face, and then folds himself into the driver’s seat, pushing it all the way back until Hermione has to put her legs up on the seat.

The road twists up through the mountains, past little villages with sweet grocery shops and tiny pubs and lovely houses with dark slate roofs. They pass through a town with a waterfall and stop there for a while, hanging over the bridge to look down at the rushing water below them, squeezing their way into tiny, expensive mountaineering shops. They clamber back into the car for the last stretch, just as it’s getting dark outside and the mountains start to appear on the horizon like black, towering clouds.

Hermione reads on the back seat with the yellow roof light on, and Harry turns a little in his seat to watch her, Malfoy next to her with his head resting up against the window. Now, next to each other in the low light, they don’t seem like they can’t talk to each other without it breaking into an argument.

Malfoy is quiet in the car and Harry knows he’s trying to be nice. Harry sort of wishes he could ask Hermione to do the same thing, but of course he can’t. He wouldn't. It would be like asking her to forget about all the names Malfoy called her, the times he tried to hurt her. Harry’s just grateful they can sit next to each other sometimes, and feels terrible wishing for more.

It’s dark when they arrive in Newborough and escape out of the car, the dog barking inside the house, waves crashing heavily somewhere through the trees. Harry stretches while Hermione starts taking their bags out of the boot, the bandages pulling against his skin. He’s going to have to take them off soon, he thinks. Maybe in the morning.

He ducks down beside the front door and lifts up a heavy yellow plant pot to grab the house keys hidden underneath. “Secure,” Malfoy says, standing beside Harry with his suitcase in one hand and Harry’s duffel in the other. He slings it over his shoulder when Harry tries to take it from him.

“Unlock the door,” Ron says. “Or I’m pissing out here and you’ll all have to see it.”

Malfoy face goes weird, sort of horrified, sort of trying not to laugh, and Harry snorts, opening the front door.

Berry, who is a small and nervous collie, jumps up on Harry as they all cram themselves inside the front hallway, taking off shoes and hanging up coats and shivering in the cold. “Do you want to go out?” Hermione asks, stroking her soft ears, trying to lead her claws away from Harry’s very fragile stomach.

“Hello,” Malfoy cooes, leaning down towards her, petting the rough fur on her back. “Do you want to go outside, darling?” he says, his head bent very close to Hermione’s. “Did we keep you waiting all day?” His voice is unlike anything Harry’s ever heard.

Hermione glances up at Harry, makes eyes at him significantly. Harry shrugs and goes to hang his own coat up over the top of Ron’s. Malfoy is a constant barrage of surprises, Hermione is correct, but Harry doesn’t know why he’s the one who has to answer for it.

“Oi,” Ron calls from the kitchen or possibly the downstairs loo. “What do we want for dinner?”

“Pasta,” Harry shouts back, which makes his chest hurt for some reason. “Ouch,” he says, and puts a hand to his sternum, under his jumper. The hair there is growing back all stubbly and short and painful, and Harry really wants to have words with whoever at the hospital decided to give him a fucking hot wax while he was being stitched up.

“Okay?” Hermione asks, always quick to notice when he’s not feeling quite right.

“Mmm,” Harry says. “Shouting hurts for some reason. But, yeah.”

“If I let this dog out will she run away and never be seen again and then will I be murdered horribly by Ginny Weasley?” Malfoy asks. He has a hold of Berry’s collar like he never wants her out of his sight.

“Her name’s Berry,” Harry tells him.

“Do you not think Luna would murder you horribly?” Hermione asks.

Malfoy glances at her, shocked that she seems to have directed an actual question his way. “Well, no,” he says. “She’d delegate that to Ginny, wouldn’t she?”

Hermione snorts. “Come on,” she says. “I’ll show you where the back door is.”

Malfoy’s eyes go wide, the way they do when he badly wants to make a rude comment but is trying to be polite. “Yes,” he says, his eyes flicking over to meet Harry’s for a moment. “Okay.”

“Hermione and Malfoy are talking,” Harry whispers when he finds Ron in the kitchen, reaching up into the cupboards to bring down a packet of dried spaghetti. “Should I be worried?” He’s only half joking, and feels as though maybe he should be lurking in the hallway in case they decided to have an impromptu duel to the death over who has to pick up the dog shit. The way Malfoy’s been acting lately makes Harry think he’d botch it on purpose. Like he’d actually rather just die than even look badly in Hermione’s direction.

“Nah,” Ron says easily, and then doesn’t elaborate. Harry would love just once to have Ron’s easy faith in people.

“You and Malfoy had a chat?” Harry asks. Ron’s started chopping tomatoes now, on a bright green chopping board.

He nods over to the kitchen table, down a few steps in a little sunken room with a big glass roof. “Gin and Luna left you a letter, by the way,” he says.

“Hm,” Harry says. He loves letters. “Is it just for me?” he asks, even as he’s picking it up and sees that it is.

“I thought you’d gone to sleep,” Ron says. The knife is weirdly loud on the cutting board, and Harry glances over to him. He’s gone very red.

Harry rips open the letter. “The other night?” he says. “I was, kind of. I was too out of it to hear what you were saying, if you’re worried.”

“I’m not worried,” Ron says, but he sounds worried. Harry thinks about maybe being annoyed that Ron clearly wants to keep a secret about Malfoy. He isn’t, though. He likes the idea of them having spoken, of there being something they said to each other that they want to keep private. Harry doesn’t know what it says about himself that he’s so desperate for Malfoy and Ron and Hermione to get on. Maybe it doesn’t say anything at all.

He opens the letter and two small, neatly rolled joints fall onto the red tiled floor. He bends down carefully to pick them up. “Ooh,” Ron says, and does a little movement with his shoulders. Harry reads the note Ginny wrote him. Most of it is detailed instructions about what to feed Berry, but there’s a small postscript.

“It’s for me,” he says, laughing. “Apparently she’ll know if I share it with you guys.”

“She will not,” Ron says grumpily. “Unless she’s suddenly telepathic and I don’t know about it.”

Harry hums, and puts the joints back into the envelope. “You know,” he says. “I feel like Luna being telepathic would explain a whole lot of things.”

“I can’t believe Ginny said that was just for you,” Ron says, gesturing dangerously with the knife. It makes Harry feel a little ill to look at, so he turns to see what’s happening in the garden. There are wide glass doors set into the far wall that lead onto a raised deck, the garden sprawling out beyond it, disappearing into the darkness. Berry runs into view, squats to piss, and then runs out of view again.

“She said she was worried about me and that it was for pain relief,” Harry says. He sways a little, and steadies himself with one hand on the back of the chair next to him. He didn’t realise how tired he was, how worn down. His legs feel shaky from being in one position all day.

“Oh,” Ron says awkwardly. “I guess that does make sense.”

“Is that allowed?” Harry asks, turning back towards him.

Ron rolls his eyes. “It’s allowed,” he says. “Now come and help me do these onions. I don’t want to cry in front of Malfoy again.”

//

After dinner Harry pokes around the house to see how many of the beds are made. He’s having a room to himself tonight, so that he can spread himself out across the mattress and not have anyone bump into him while they’re sleeping. Also he’s a bit worried about having to pick who to share a room with, and he’s hopeful that this will solve all of his problems. Harry thinks maybe the best thing to do would be to just sleep by himself for this whole holiday, and maybe pretend that none of them have ever had sex with each other before. Because Hermione and Ron know, theoretically, that he and Malfoy have fucked, but Harry’s not sure he wants to confront them with that information so soon after they’ve all had a bit of a fright.

Malfoy, on the other hand, had gone through a very odd period right when they’d started sleeping together where he wanted Harry to tell him in great detail about what fucking Ron and Hermione was like. Harry tried to keep things close to his chest, but he can’t really keep his mouth shut when he’s getting eaten out, apparently.

So he goes to sleep in his own room in his own big bed, and wakes up to the sound of Ron snoring from across the hall, loud enough to bleed through two closed doors. “Ron,” he yells, but the snoring continues, so he reluctantly wakes up. He has a short shower in the bathroom, trying to keep his wrappings dry. They’re going to have to come off today, for sure, but he isn’t ready to face it just yet. He pats himself down with a towel and then goes to hunt for some breakfast.

Malfoy is already awake, looking peaky and bleary-eyed over a bowl of cereal. He’s reading the paper, and petting Berry’s head where she’s rested it on his thigh. “How do you put up with that?” he says mournfully, gesturing down the hallway. Ron’s still snoring, but it’s a lot more muffled now that Harry’s downstairs.

“He doesn’t do it all the time,” Harry says. “Just every so often. And then Hermione and I usually just wake him up.”

Malfoy rubs his hand over his eyes, crinkling his face up. “It’s actually indecent,” he says. “ _It bled through my silencing charms.”_

“Aw,” Harry says, coming to sit next to Malfoy at the table. He leans down on his way past and kisses Malfoy on the mouth.

“Bleh,” Malfoy says, pulling away. “You taste like all-bran. Get away from me forever.”

Harry pulls a face. “You’re such a fuckhead,” he says.

Malfoy raises his eyebrows. “A fuckhead?” he echoes. “Really Potter? You’re so classy. I can’t believe you have a First Class Order of Merlin. Sometimes I just sit there and think about how unlikely it is that they gave you that medal.”

“It was for bravery,” Harry says, smirking. “Not talking good, you prick.”

Malfoy eats a giant, dignified spoonful of cheerios, and doesn’t reply.

“Did you let Berry out this morning?” Harry asks, after he’s eaten a bit of all-bran. It does taste a bit rank, actually, like maybe Luna and Ginny have had it since they moved it. He forces a bit more down anyway.

“Yes,” Malfoy says. “I took her on a walk, actually, since I was awake at six. I think I really will hex Weasley when he comes downstairs.”

“No you will not,” Harry says. He reads Berry’s feeding instructions for something to look at. “Do you know we’re supposed to cook chicken for her dinner?” he says, not really expecting a reply. “They’ve left special chicken breasts for her in the fridge.”

“Let’s eat them,” Malfoy suggests, ever excited at the idea of just slightly fucking someone over. “We’re dogsitting, we deserve them.”

“You don’t even like chicken,” Harry mutters. He thinks Ron might have woken up. The floorboards are creaking upstairs and he can’t hear the snoring anymore. “And you definitely don’t deserve them.”

Malfoy flicks a bit of milk into Harry’s hair from the end of his spoon, and then grins when Harry kicks him under the table. His shirt is open at the collar, and Harry wants to bite the tendon in his neck, dig his teeth in along Malfoy’s jaw. Harry wonders for a moment, distractedly, how he’s supposed to go an entire week without getting to do that.

Eventually Hermione and Ron emerge from upstairs, freshly showered. Harry eyes them for a bit, suspiciously, because he thinks they might have fucked. Hermione’s got that loose-limbed way about her like she’s come twice already, and she keeps smiling. She offers to make Malfoy a cup of tea, and Harry upgrades his vague suspicion to absolute certainty when she doesn’t even put too much milk in on purpose to fuck it up.

It’s around midday before they get it into themselves to leave the house. It’s a blustery, bright day, and they walk slowly over to the beach, making their way carefully down the sand dunes and onto the flat. The tide is miles out, the sand glistening wetly in the sunlight where the water had been. The lighthouse beckons to them, bright white and blinding, and they walk towards it, taking their time. Berry runs off ahead and finds various items to sniff, at one point getting a big clump of seaweed in her mouth and trying to persuade Malfoy, using her eyes, to throw it for her like a stick. He firmly refuses, but then gets a soft look on his face when she mopes along behind them for a while, dragging it across the sand, wagging her tail.

Harry’s whole torso starts to hurt after a bit, so they turn back at the lighthouse, and he’s shivering by the time they reach the house again, the cold air got into his bones somehow. Ron and Hermione leave for the nearest Tesco in the car, for bread and milk and maybe wine, and while they’re gone Harry wraps himself up in a blanket, burrito-like on the sofa. He makes Malfoy change the TV channels for him so he doesn’t have to expose his arms to the cold air.

Malfoy sits beside him, eyes fixed blankly on a rerun of _The Really Wild Show,_ head leant back against the sofa. Harry considers kissing him and then also maybe sucking him off, but he has no idea how long it’ll take Ron and Hermione to buy groceries and come back. He could take Malfoy to bed, he supposes, but- Harry isn’t sure why that idea doesn’t sound so appealing as peeling Malfoy’s trousers off right here, swallowing him down.

Ron and Hermione are quick back after all, and Malfoy goes out to help them bring bags inside while Harry dozes with Berry on the sofa. She smells sort of odd, maybe from all the seaweed she’d come into close contact with, but he doesn’t really mind. She has really soft fur, and makes soft snuffling noises when he forgets to pet her for a few minutes, nudging at his hand.

“How are you feeling?” Hermione asks, coming into the living room with a glass of wine for him, and Harry has to extricate one arm out of his blanket cocoon in order to take it.

“Not super,” he says, “but definitely felt worse.”

Hermione laughs. “That’s not the best benchmark, considering,” she replies, and flops down next to him with her own glass of wine. Harry puts his head on her shoulder. He likes being looked after like this. Likes people asking after him, checking up on him.

“Hey,” he says. “Thanks for being so nice to me.”

Hermione turns her nose into his hair, which is tangled and extra curly from the salt wind earlier. “It’s okay,” she says into it. “It’s actually my pleasure.”

“Ooh,” Malfoy says after a while, from the kitchen, while Harry and Hermione are competing over who can drink their wine the fastest. “Weasley,” he says excitedly, “look what they _hid_ from us. I can’t believe they thought they could _keep this from us,_ ” and Harry hears the low rumble of Ron’s laugh.

Hermione shifts. She’s hearing it too, Harry guesses. “Is it weird?” he asks, the wine maybe gone to his head. “Malfoy being here.”

“I thought it would be,” Hermione says, sighing underneath him. “And I don’t know what to think of him, but it’s not weird.”

“It’s kind of nice, I think,” Harry says quietly.

“Mm,” she says, and then they listen to the noises floating in from the kitchen, which sound ominous until Harry hears the scratch of a needle being put on a record, the fizzy, grey sound of a song about to start.

“Oh no,” he says, standing up. “Ginny will actually murder them if they ruin her record player.”

“Oh what are they going to do to it,” Hermione says, stretching out over the sofa, burying her toes under Berry’s sleeping body. But she gets up too, and follows him.

Malfoy is sitting on the floor, gleefully reading the back of a record sleeve when the song starts. Harry knows this one by heart, the guitar, the voice. From where he doesn’t know. “Oh,” Hermione says, leaning up against his back. “I love this one.”

“You know this?” Malfoy asks, looking up at her in surprise.

“Everyone knows this,” Harry tells him. “This is The Beatles. Everyone is born already knowing every Beatles song, I think.”

“ _Little darling,_ ” Hermione sings, laughing a little, her voice clear and lovely, and then drops down beside Malfoy on the floor, as if it never happened. He’s staring at her, his eyes wide. “You’ve started it on the wrong side,” she points out. “This is side B.”

Malfoy blinks at her. “You know the words to this?” he asks.

“My parents used to play it all the time when I was growing up,” she says, taking the sleeve away from him. He gives it up, easily. “I don’t like them that much really, but this is a great song.”

Ron, helpfully, refills Harry’s wine glass. It’s white this time, and fizzy, and Harry thinks maybe he should check the list his doctor gave him about acceptable activities. He puts his arm around Ron’s waist, and waits for the song to change over, the static, their voices changing. Ron is so warm.

“Dinner’s ready,” Ron says after a while. “If you can tear yourselves away from the record player.”

“I can’t,” Malfoy says. He’s watching it turn. “Can I take it home with me? How much cash do you think I’d have to leave to make sure Luna and Ginny wouldn’t hunt me down and steal it back.”

Ron shrugs. “Come and eat your salmon,” he says, “that I worked very hard on, and that took me a very long time.”

“I know very well that that salmon came in a bag, Weasley, because I was in here the entire time you were cooking it,” Malfoy says, standing up. Hermione laughs, and hauls herself off the floor using a chair to balance.

“I was there when you bought it,” she says. “So unless you were trying to impress Harry--”

“I was, actually,” Ron says, catching Harry’s face between the palms of his hands. He squeezes gently. “And now you’ve ruined all my plans.”

“Let go of me,” Harry says, twisting away. “I couldn’t cook a salmon properly with _or_ without a bag. So you can consider me impressed.”

“I will,” Ron says, pleased and red-cheeked.

//

Harry takes his bandages off the next afternoon in the upstairs bathroom, while Hermione and Ron are talking the dog for a walk and Malfoy is doing something involved and complicated with beef in the kitchen. He puts the lid down on the toilet and sits on top of it, then runs the sink full of lukewarm water. The squares of gauze have gone a bit ratty around the edges, like they’re itching to come off, and he peels them away gently. They go easily, leaving behind one silvery scar after another, thick and raised. Harry looks down at himself, and then gets up to look at them in the mirror above the sink. They look different than Malfoy’s do. He keeps going, leaving the bits of gauze on the side of the bathtub, balanced on the lip.

The bandages are harder to take off, do actually need soaking like the doctor said they might. He unwraps himself little by little, hardly wanting to look. His stomach is a mess of scars. A thatch of them, like tree branches or forked lightning. Harry runs his fingers over them, bump bump bump, until he reaches the smooth skin on his side. He frowns down at them, and doesn’t think it’s bad to-- it’s not vain to not like the look of them, he thinks. He closes his eyes, swallows hard.

Malfoy finds him a few minutes later. Harry should have known he would, because Malfoy can’t keep still for more than three minutes at a time, and also can’t be by himself for more than three minutes at a time.

“Fuck off,” Harry says, when Malfoy knocks on the door. Even the sound of his knuckles is annoying.

Malfoy says something unintelligible and then knocks again, until Harry wrenches the door open.

Malfoy looks around, takes in the bloody bandages on the floor, the gauze on the tub, the pale pink water in the sink, and then Harry’s bare chest. His face crumples.

“Potter,” he says, stepping closer, reaching out. Harry doesn’t really feel like being touched, but Malfoy’s hand stops halfway anyway.

“It’s alright,” Harry tells him. “Looks worse than it feels.”

He doesn’t know why he said that. He supposes it’s true that they hardly hurt at all, except for after he’s gone on a long walk. And they’re feeling less and less terrible every day.

Malfoy has an awful look on his face, one that makes Harry-- angry, almost. That he doesn’t know what Malfoy is thinking, that the look of him put that wretched expression on Malfoy’s face. “Stop staring,” he snaps, and Malfoy looks up at him.

“Oh, darling,” he says, his voice thick with sympathy, something else maybe. Harry can’t take it from Malfoy like he can from Ron and Hermione, for some reason. All he can think about is doing this same thing to Malfoy. Malfoy seeing himself afterwards, the way he looked. What Harry had put there.

“I’m not really in the mood,” Harry says.

“For what?” Malfoy asks.

“Just-- you,” Harry tells him. He puts his hand into the sink, through the bloody water, and pulls the plug. He washes his hands after, using the vanilla hand soap in the dish. The bathroom smells like blood, now.

“Potter,” Malfoy says again, hurt.

“Will you just shut up, please,” Harry says savagely, looking up at him, making himself taller. “For like five minutes.”

Malfoy’s hair has gone pale white in the afternoon sun that’s leaking in through the shutters over the window, and he has four thick stripes of light shining over his left cheek. His eyes are dark. “Go on,” he says, lifting his chin up. Harry was sure he didn’t want to kiss him, until right now, until somehow he does.

So Harry kisses him, surging forward to curl his hand around the side of his neck, biting his bottom lip until Malfoy is sagging against the emptied sink, his hand clutching Harry’s bare hip. “Merlin,” Malfoy says, breathing out into Harry’s open mouth. He spins Harry around, presses him flat up to the wall, his hips against Harry’s. “There you go,” he says.

“Shut up,” Harry pleads. Malfoy sucks a bruise into his neck. It hurts, and then it doesn’t, and then he wants more of them, all over him. He leans his head to the side so that Malfoy can get in under his chin, nipping at his neck.

“Hey,” Malfoy says, and pins one of Harry’s hands to the wall. Harry shudders underneath him, his whole spine going liquid and silky and hot. “What do you want?”

“Other than for you to shut up,” Harry says weakly.

“Other than that,” Malfoy agrees. He undoes the top button on Harry’s jeans, his knuckles brushing up against the tender, new skin on Harry’s stomach, and then takes his hand away. Harry moans. He tries not to, but he does, and Malfoy’s breath hitches like he liked it, so Harry does it again.

“Whatever,” he says. “Just-- get me off.”

Malfoy takes Harry into his room and deposits him onto his bed, which is unmade and messy but still smells like detergent. Harry lies in a hot patch of sunlight while Malfoy licks a thick stripe up his dick, sucks the head into the wet heat of his mouth. Malfoy’s room is bigger than his, Harry thinks absently, staring up at the ceiling wildly while Malfoy opens him on his fingers. He doesn’t know how Malfoy wrangled that, when Harry was the first to pick one out.

“You’re so tight,” Malfoy says, and Harry looks down at him. Malfoy is watching his fingers slide in and out of Harry’s body, frowning a little. “When was the last time you did this?”

Harry kicks at his side. “Like six days ago,” he says. “You were there, you fucking prat.”

Malfoy curls his fingers up, and Harry stops being able to talk. He gasps when Malfoy fits the head of his cock in, pushing him open. He looks out of the window while Malfoy fucks him, because he thinks if he sees Malfoy’s face, red and sweating, teeth bared, hair in his eyes, then he’ll just come on the spot.

Malfoy gets a hand underneath Harry’s back and lifts him up a little, working himself further inside, and the wind knocks a tree branch against the window pane. Harry can’t look at him, knows he shouldn’t, but then does anyway. Malfoy’s watching Harry’s dick where it’s leaking onto his stomach, and Harry gets a hand around himself.

“Yeah,” Malfoy says, “that’s perfect. Get yourself off for me,” breathless, and Harry does, coming all over his hand and his belly and Malfoy’s thighs.

Malfoy fucks into him a few more times, coming with his back bent, his hand braced on Harry’s shoulder. He doesn’t get like this when Harry fucks him. He doesn’t-- let himself look like this, like something wild.

Malfoy gets a cloth from the bathroom that looks like one of Harry’s t-shirts, and wipes Harry’s stomach off. He’s gentle on Harry’s new scars, and doesn’t look at them for very long before he’s flickering his gaze up to Harry’s, as though he’s about to be pushed away or something. Maybe Harry would if he had the energy.

Malfoy kisses him after a little while, turning Harry onto his side and curling closer, fitting his thigh in between Harry’s legs. Harry hears Ron and Hermione come back, slamming the door, Berry barking. Hears them calling for him, once, and then not again. Harry’s eyes have been closed forever, his lips buzzing, Malfoy up against him with his mouth open.

Malfoy pulls back. “I am sorry about your scars,” he says, ambushing Harry, who is lightheaded and half-hard. Harry frowns at him tiredly.

“I’ve got a lot,” Harry says.

“Well you shouldn’t have,” Malfoy says sternly, like that’s going to be the end of it now.

“I’m sorry too,” Harry says. He reaches out with his eyes closed and finds a scar on Malfoy’s chest, rubs it lightly.

Malfoy is silent for a moment. “I know it was an accident,” he says. “That doesn’t-- I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I know it was an accident though.”

“I did panic,” Harry says. “Shouldn’t have ended like that, though.”

“No,” Malfoy allows, his voice serious. “We did come up with some pretty elaborate ways to hurt each other, back then.”

Harry is so, so glad they aren’t doing that anymore. That whatever it was that got hold of them then is gone now. “It was so fucked,” he says, his voice cracking a bit.

Malfoy kisses him again. “I didn’t realise how you were, in school,” he says. “The way you were. I knew you were-- I realised, obviously, that you were special, or whatever. But I didn’t realise how--”

He cuts himself off, and Harry blinks his eyes open to watch him. Malfoy’s face has gone closed off, eyes focused on nothing.

“How what?” Harry asks.

Malfoy shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I suppose- I suppose that I didn’t really know I could feel like this about you. It didn’t seem to me like there were options other than-- just hating you.”

“Malfoy,” Harry says, but Malfoy won’t meet his gaze. He puts his hand on Malfoy’s side.

“It was pretty obtuse of me looking back,” Malfoy says, mouth downturned. “He’s got loads of friends and he’s so attractive and he’s right about Voldemort even though nobody believes him and I don’t know whether I should be jealous of him or in love with him or Merlin knows what, so I suppose maybe I should just try to kill him.”

“Malfoy,” Harry says again, tugging Malfoy closer to him.

“It didn’t really solve anything,” Malfoy sighs, rolling away. Harry doesn’t know what to say.

//

On their second-to-last night in Wales they go down to the beach and put up a ward and a bonfire. Hermione does the spells, circling around the way she always used to, murmuring under her breath until the air goes tight for a moment, like your ears are popping, and then releases.

Ron’s brought a case of beer with him, and a whole selection of crisps, which he tears into with his teeth. “Mm,” he says, crunching down noisily, satisfied. “This was really fun.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. He’s lying on the damp sand, which is still a little hot in the evening light. It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there, the sun setting over the water.

Ron looks over at him guiltily. “Not the circumstances,” he says. “Of course. Goes without saying, probably. But this has been fun.”

“Yeah,” Harry says again. “I know. I’m agreeing with you.”

Ron shoves at his shoulder gently, leans down to kiss him. “Even Malfoy,” he says thoughtfully, pulling back. “Which was unexpected.”

Malfoy is off at the water’s edge with Hermione and Berry. They’ve spoken more in the past day than Harry’s ever seen them speak. Even at work, where they’re so distant with each other that you’d think they’d never even met.

“Malfoy is just, generally unexpected,” Harry admits. “Like. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“No,” Ron says, then laughs. “I expect not.”

Hermione comes back eventually with Malfoy in tow, wrapped up in a big coat that belongs to Ginny, and they sit down to drink the beer, Ron handing out sandwiches. Harry stays where he is in the sand, digging his fingers past the warm surface to where it’s cool and wet underneath. He blinks up at the clear blue sky, the moon just coming out above them.

“Hey,” he says eventually. Malfoy is lying with his head on Harry’s thigh, and makes a disgruntled noise when Harry displaces him to get the now-crumpled joints out of his pocket. “I’m not really in pain,” he says. “So Ginny probably wouldn’t mind if I share.”

“We won’t tell her,” Hermione says, watching him sit up, light it, cupping his hand around the match. He lies back down, passes it to her. His lungs feel fuzzy.

“You skipped me out,” Malfoy protests, but settles again when Hermione gives it to him. He coughs a bit, so Harry pushes his hand into Malfoy’s soft, lovely hair. “You’re getting sand on me,” Malfoy murmurs, but his heart isn’t really in it.

“Merlin,” Ron says, exhaling thick, greyish smoke. “Ginny is-- really holding out on us. Merlin.”

Hermione pets his knee. “You’re alright,” she says, and looks out at the sea, then, “we should go swimming.”

They leave Berry sleeping on Ron’s coat and go down to the water. The waves look even bigger from here, more ferocious, but Hermione seems undeterred. She takes her clothes off and Ron does too and Harry sees Malfoy deliberately not looking at them. He slips his eyes over a few times anyway, like he can't help it. The two of them leave their clothes in a little pile on the sand, weighing them down with a rock so they won’t get blown away, and then scream when they go into the water, like seagulls, and both turn back to look at Harry, laughing. Hermione walks backwards away from him, her hair being torn about by the wind.

“I don’t know,” Malfoy says, and glances back at the bonfire wistfully, the warmth and the light and the sleeping dog.

Harry watches Hermione curl her arms around herself at the cold, sees Ron stumble into her, wrapping himself around her. They’re far out now, but not far enough that he couldn’t catch up with them.

“Do you want to?” Malfoy asks. “Will it be alright for you?”

Everyone who ever found out about Harry and Ron and Hermione, what they were to each other, said that they probably wouldn’t last, apart from Malfoy. They said it outright, or they thought it loudly enough that they might as well have said it outright.

Harry knows that love like this isn’t something you grow out of. He thinks Malfoy knows that too.

Harry nods. “Come on,” he says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr xxx](http://seefin.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I tagged this as draco/harry/ron/hermione because I firmly believe that very soon after this they all get drunk together again and Ron kisses Draco in the midst of a vicious argument about chess or something, and then spends the next six days panicking about it until everyone has reassured him about a billion times that it's okay. 
> 
> Hermione takes longer, but that's alright


End file.
